Wednesday, March 21, 2012

City Council Approves Plan for Resurfacing and Restriping Portion of Hillsborough Street

On March 20, the Raleigh City Council approved the restriping and pavement marking options for Hillsborough Street between Woodburn Road and Park Avenue.

This summer, the City of Raleigh is scheduled to begin resurfacing this portion of Hillsborough Street. The section of Hillsborough Street currently supports more than 17,000 vehicles traveling the street each day and has substantial bicycle and pedestrian activity. The corridor is also served by multiple bus routes provided by Capital Area Transit and by Triangle Transit.

Currently, this section of Hillsborough Street has five lanes, with two travel lanes in each direction and a continuous center turn lane. The approved option will remove one travel lane in each direction, reducing the street to one travel lane in each direction and retain the center turn lane. The removal of the travel lanes will allow the City to install bicycle lanes on both sides of the street and to introduce new on-street parking along the south side of the street.

Adjustments to the existing signalized mid-block pedestrian crosswalk adjacent to the Velvet Cloak Inn is included in the upcoming resurfacing project. The crosswalk will be relocated westward near the YMCA to address the highest pedestrian demand in this area. The existing pedestrian signal will be decommissioned, and the new crosswalk will be monitored to determine if a new signal is needed in the future.